Creating associations to substitute banks' direct credit: Evidence from Belgium

Firms' incentives to join other firms to collectively apply for a unique loan is empirically studied in this paper. When several firms jointly apply for a unique loan an association of firms is created. We identify the associations that had access to credit in Belgium over the period 2001-2011 and the firms that created each association, observing the amount of credit both the firms and the associations obtained from each financial institution they used. We analyze the amount of credit obtained by firms depending on whether they belonged to any association, firms' likelihood to form associatio... Mehr ...